Red Bluff Art Association: Korenko named Artist of the Month

Wildlife artist, muralist, and "new mom," Krista Korenko is RBAA's Artist of the Month. "It has never happened in our rich 56 year history that a Red Bluff Art Association member has given birth to twins," said Association President Connie Maxey. "And, also, first-time grandparent and RBAA Secretary/Publicist Arlene Winslow."

Krista loves challenges and her current challenge is being the new mother of twin boys, Ashton and Brayden who arrived on Christmas Eve.

Krista discovered in Junior High a love of drawing and soon filled a number of sketch books with horses, big cats and other animals.

She decorated her bedroom closet doors with horse and wolf portraits. While in High School she was one of three artists chosen to do a mural on the Palos Verdes stable wall. The mural depicted three almost life-size horses.

Since then she has completed murals for friends' baby nurseries and also for her employer, Haven Humane Society where she is a manager. Krista likes working in acrylic, oils, color pencil and oil pastel. One of her more detailed works was painting African scenes on a rifle stock.

Krista's other passion is animal care and nurture.

"I have always loved animals and knew I wanted to work with them. So naturally when it came to the subjects of my artwork, it is always some sort of creature," she said. "In fact, the only times my art did not have an animal in it was when an art teacher had something specific we had to draw."

Krista attended Moorpark College's Exotic Animal Training and Management program, which is one of the few teaching zoos in the country. This led to jobs at Wild Things, an animal rescue near Sacramento and at the Animal Ark in Reno.

She has been an assistant trainer for the movies and worked on both the Cat in the Hat and The Retrievers.

She has fostered care a number of baby animals in her home including a fox kit, wolf pup, beaver, and raven hatchling. Her personal menagerie includes a one-eyed umbrella cockatoo, a starving dog that wondered to her doorstep in Reno and has stayed for good, and a shelter dog that was confiscated due to abuse that Krista is rehabilitating.